A blog about weather, climate, and science. Occasionally, we'll post on other topics of interest.

Monday, December 10, 2012

The Dave Barry Gift Guide

As a public service, here is the 2012 Dave Barry Gift Guide. Dave begins with a few words to set the stage:

In the old days, Thanksgiving was not a shopping day. It was a day when we expressed gratitude for our many God-given blessings in the same way our Pilgrim forefathers did: by eating a 27,000-calorie meal, then spending the rest of the day lying motionless watching televised football while burping out gravy fumes.

Back then, Black Friday actually happened on Friday, which is how it got the name “Black Friday.” But then the Black Friday store-opening hours — probably as a result of global climate change — started creeping earlier and earlier. The stores opened at 10 a.m., then 6 a.m., then 3 a.m., and so on, until we have reached the point where, this year, Black Friday actually began on Thursday evening.

So Thanksgiving is no longer a day of quiet reflective belching. The new Thanksgiving tradition is to gulp down your dinner, then race to the mall and join the vast swarming hordes of bargain-hunters getting into fistfights over discounted electronics.